'Mangu, Punjabi Mutts demolition to hurt Sikhs'

BHUBANESWAR, Sept. 12 -- Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been urged to protect the Mangu Mutt and the Panjabi Mutt at Puri rather than letting them to be demolished.

In a memorandum to the CM, lawyer Sukhvinder Kaur and researcher Anil Dhir on behalf of the Sikh community have highlighted the age-old connection of the two mutts with the Jagannath Temple.

They said that the connection between Sikhism and the Jagannath temple goes back to more than 500 years ago when Guru Nanak Dev Ji visited the holy temple to spread the message of Ek Onkar, meaning "one supreme reality".

It was at the Jagannath Temple that the Holy Sikh Arti, which is enshrined in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, was composed. Since then, the association of Sikhs with the Ja...